Having spent ten chapters proving the greatness of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Paul then turned to the believer, to encourage him to walk in faith, not abandoning those things he had come to believe. Chapter twelve begins with a series of examples of faithful men and women who walked with God under difficult circumstances, and by this Paul means to encourage his Jewish brethren to stand firm under their present persecution. The word faith is mentioned 24 times in this chapter, thus, emphasizing its importance in the life of the believer. One cannot simply believe Jesus was a good man, as many Jews do today, and expect to be accepted by God. Faith defines the believers life. We begin with faith in Jesus, we live in faith in Jesus, and we die in faith in Jesus. There simply is no middle ground.
After spending so much of his epistle showing the greatness of Jesus, Paul ends his argument by saying faith is the only acceptable response (Hebrews 10:38-39). Reading Hebrews 11:1 in English would miss Paul’s play on words in the Greek. He uses hupostasis (G5287 – “substance” in Hebrews 11:1) with hupostole (G5289 – “draw back” in Hebrews 10:39) and with hupostello (G5288 – “draw back” in Hebrews 10:38). He is drawing a comparison between those who draw back (G5288 & G5289) and those who take to themselves the assurance (G5287) of their hope and stand fast in the matter.
The KJV has Paul defining faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” However, of the translations I have, I believe the ISV is clearest saying: “Now faith is the assurance that what we hope for will come about and the certainty that what we cannot see exists.” The Moffett version says: “Now faith means we are confident of what we hope for, convinced of what we do not see.” I believe the KJV translators err here by trying to make faith into a substance that exists by itself, as God exists by himself. It doesn’t. It is expressed by the believer and its reality depends upon the believer expressing it. For example, the KJV translators translate the same word (G5287) in Hebrews 3:14 where Paul writes: “we are made partakers of Christ, “if we hold the beginning of our confidence (G5287) steadfast unto the end” (parenthesis mine). Clearly, Paul is speaking of faith in this verse, and the KJV translators used the word confidence to express that. Therefore there is good reason to believe the same word or a similar one like assurance, which is used by the NASB, should be used in Hebrews 11:1 as well.
Likewise, in the second clause of Hebrews 11:1, the KJV translators and others who follow their lead have translated the Greek word (G1650) into evidence to correspond with the word substance in the first clause. If ‘substance’ is a poor rendering of the word, so is evidence in the second clause. In the Septuagint it is always translated reproof or reproving. The only other place where the Greek word is used in the New Covenant is at 2Timothy 3:16, where it is rendered reproof. According to “Thayer’s Greek Lexicon” the word can also be rendered conviction, which fits best in Hebrews 11:1. So, a good rendering of the definition of faith would be: faith is the confidence of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. It is not a substance or evidence that exists alone and by itself, waiting for man to use it. It is something that is expressed by man when he believes something unseen with his physical eyes is true.[1]
In the next verse Paul tells us that the elders or the patriarchs obtained a good report (G3140). The Greek word is Martureo (G3140), and it means ‘to witness’ but, since the word is in the passive voice, it means the ancients obtained a witness of their faith from someone else—i.e. God, or in other words, the Scriptures, i.e. the word of God, witnesses to the faith of the patriarchs (Hebrews 11:2).
Finally, Paul was not speaking of the universe when he claimed the “worlds were prepared or framed by the word of God” (Hebrews 11:3). The Greek word is aion (G165) and means ages. That is, God created the ages through the One who became Jesus (cp. Hebrews 1:2). Therefore, the things Paul’s readers were witnessing in the first century AD were not brought to pass by the authorities who seemed to initiate those world events. Just as Assyria was the rod of the Lord’s anger (Isaiah 10:5-7), or the tool of his judgment (and Assyria didn’t realize it; cp. Isaiah 10:7), neither did the movers and shakers of the world during the first century AD (viz. Romans and the Jews) realize they were bringing to pass the Lord’s judgment upon the Jewish state for all the evil that was done to his people (cf. Matthew 23:32-38). All things that are seen are brought about by things unseen. This is the assurance of the hope of the saints, and their conviction about unseen matters, such as injustice, judgment and vindication.
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[1] See Young’s Literal Translation for a reasonable parallel to my understanding.
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